Georgia officials sue conservative voting group over refusal to produce ballot-harvesting evidence

People wait in line to early vote for the U.S. Senate runoff election in Georgia between Sen. Raphael Warnock and challenger Herschel Walker, on Monday, Nov. 28, 2022, in Kennesaw, Ga., near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

The Georgia State Election Board is asking a judge to order a conservative voting organization to produce information to help investigate its claims of ballot trafficking in the state.

The Texas-based True the Vote group filed complaints with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in November 2021, including one saying it had received “a detailed account of coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro Atlanta” during the 2020 general election and in a runoff election in January 2021.

True the Vote’s assertions were relied upon heavily for the film “2000 Mules,” a widely debunked film by conservative pundit and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. The film featured surveillance video from drop boxes in Atlanta’s suburbs showing people depositing multiple ballots. A State Election Board investigation found that those people were submitting ballots for themselves and family members who lived with them, which is allowed under Georgia law.